An unexpected memory
by Bald as Malak
Summary: Visas experiences an unexpected memory as she journeys towards the Exile.


**An unexpected memory**

* * *

Visas' discovers a memory on her way to find the Exile.

Unbeta'ed, and very rough--a last minute entry for Albur's "Past Experiences" Challenge.  
(see the Forum: Trillian's Challenge Forum Supported by BaM Webs)

* * *

**Visas. On an unnamed shuttle beyond the Outer Rim  
**

It is difficult to believe that my plan has worked, even as I steer the shuttle my master has given me away from the _Ravager_.

I think a part of me thought he would see through the lie I told him, even though I had carefully prepared it so to take advantage of his weakness with regards to the Exile. His vision is so vast, his power so immense, how could he not sense the fear underlying the words that I uttered. When he had choked me with the Force, I thought that was what had happened.

Instead, here I was, flying a shuttle towards the stars of the Republic, far away from anywhere I have ever been. She is there, the one I seek. The Exile.

It is such a strange name, and yet it is one that I would carry myself now, should any of my race remain to judge me. But until that date, I remain simply Visas.

My hands float over the ship's controls effortlessly, even as I marvel that they know the ships control so well when I have never flown one before. But that is the extent of my master's power. He ripped the knowledge from one of the Sith soldiers flying his ship and had planted it in my brain, even as the pilot's body clanked on the floor of the bridge.

My fingers hover over the control that will put me into hyperspace, hesitating though I am not sure why. Then I realize that I'm not sure if the knowledge that my master stole for me will stay with me for the flight. I can still feel it, roughly glued to the edge of my mind like a dirty bandage, the taint of its acquisition like thick, oily sludge that seems to ooze into every crack and pore.

_Will the knowledge stay with as I move away from my master, or will it disappear?_

Part of me wants to ignore the question, to rush into space to find the one who can answer the riddle that the Exile poses, but I have grown used to ignoring my feelings. Instead, I spend three days watching myself moving the tiny ship through different manoeuvres until the stolen knowledge becomes mine, or at least enough of it to point my ship to where it needs to go.

The Exile has moved since I began this unplanned training. Somehow, from the achingly familiar, empty cold I feel around her, I think she is somewhere in hyperspace, making her way between star systems just as I plan to do.

_But which star system? Where is she going?_ I can't tell, but there is a tug that pulls me in a certain direction. And so I call the hyperspace routes onto my shuttle's screens and look over them until I find one that seems to point me in approximately the same direction as where the Exile is right now. Plugging the coordinates in, I engage the engines.

----------------------------

_Laughter ripples the air around me, my lover's amusement at my joke sending waves of purple around the small market. Each person that the waves touch smiles for a moment, infected by my lover's laughter, and their brief happiness, like a reflected wave, comes back to us, lifting the spirits of her and I even more._

_It's so easy to be happy in the market. Buying goods for a loved one, the vegetables for an anticipated meal, or just for the joy of perusing the beautiful wares brought my merchants from around the galaxy, the market was awash in good feelings so that the Force that linked us was more colourful and alive than the stalls and people. All of it makes Shis' face glow, although perhaps that is life force of my child in her belly._

_But then there is a sound, and Shis and I turn towards it as one. It is a shrieking wind more empty than the darkest corners of our Force rich planet. It whips down from the sky, its cruel touch whirling a male not to far away into the air before he crumbles into lifeless, gray dust so unlike the vibrant liveliness of the earth around. _

_There is a sudden hush around the market, even the Force is still for a moment, and then we all run as the black wind surges towards a nearby female. _

_Screams follow Shis and me as our feet pummel the ground, the sound of our retreat like the beating of drums whose notes go sour as they fade. And then I feel Shis look at me, and as I turn towards her, I feel her love stretch out towards me, a deep blue thread with tiny filaments of gold that shreds into nothingness just as I feel the dark hunger begin to unbind the tangle of my…_

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My heart is pounding when I wake up, and my face and body are coated with a cold, clammy sweat. My hand steals up to my head, to a point where I feel pain. There is something moist there that clings to my fingers as I draw them away. Curious, I bring it to my mouth.

Taste is still a sensation I'm getting used to. It feels so empty without the pallet of Force sensations that used to accompany our meals on Kataar—the songs of love and satisfaction that seemed to inhabit each morsel.

But the flavour on my finger, it is warm and salty, richer than any food I have sampled since leaving my planet.

_It's blood_, I realize suddenly. Checking, I put my fingers back to the place on my head that hurts, discovering there a small cut in the skin and a wider sensitive area.

_I must have banged it on the ceiling when I sat up after the dream_… I don't want to think about the dream, for I do not understand it.

I often dream of the destruction of my home, but never through the eyes of another. And yet, this time I was a male in love with a woman, and the father of a child-to-be. I think I had worked as a law-writer too. But I don't want to remember another's tragedy; I have enough of my own. So I begin, almost without volition, to push the memories away.

_Was it a true dream? Was I dreaming of another's life, his death at the hand of my master? If so, where is the memory coming from? And why now?_

And yet, I realize that as I push the dream and its memories away, I'm cutting myself off from something else as well. I don't know what it is, but with each passing moment I feel something precious is being lost. And so, though a part of me screams against it, I begin to pull the dream back, chasing its echoes through the Force as relentlessly as I had once pursued the diseases that inhabited my patients.

It takes almost the whole day to piece together the crumbs of the dream; it's like chasing butterflies in a meadow without a net. But finally I have them together, though like the pieces of a puzzle I have yet to find a way to bind them together again.

I start to work on the task, fitting sections together to see if they fit. Most of the time they don't, but occasionally I can hear that unique, quiet contentment of connection.

By the time I can no longer see, though, most of the pieces still float, dark and lonely like the planet remains and wrecked ships that circle Malachor V. _Will they disappear while I sleep, or will they still be here when I awake? What happens if I have another dream, will the pieces change to fit that one? Will I wake up to see the pieces of my nightmare?_

And that is too much, the idea that my life will be waiting for me here, in this dark corner of my power instead. I have lived my polluted life too hard and too long in my dreams and thoughts; I desperately do not want to see it floating before me like the worst holovideos that the soldiers on the _Ravager_ watch when they pretend that they are still alive.

And so, I reach into a nearby, small metal cabinet set into the wall of the shuttle, and pull out the hyponeedles that contain stimulants. Taking one up in my hand, I consider the thick green fluid within it.

Part of me howls in protest as I place the point against my thigh. Like all Miralukas, I have avoided chemical medicines all my life, favouring the Force for healing. But my resistance seems trivial right now; how much more can this simple fluid defile my already diseased soul? Though I can not help the grimace that forms on my face, I activate the needle.

White-hot fire seems to flare out of the point where the needle touches my skin, and its heat storms through my body in a way that is eerily similar to the hunger of my master in the male's dream.

I open my mouth to scream in despair, but before I can muster the breath for it, the feeling is gone. As I sit there, my body slouched and panting, I wonder at how I can still fear my master's power so much.

_Is it the male's dream… what is his name? _I search the pieces still bobbing in my head for his name, and it quickly finds me. _Cigi. _And then I surprise myself, my lips for a smile that spreads to my cheeks and warms my body.

It's a feeling I haven't felt for a long time, and I wonder at its source. _What is it about Cigi that makes me feel happy despite everything?_ I search inside myself for an answer, but I realize that the happiness comes not from me but from the pieces of the man's dream in my head.

_It's just the happiness that comes with recognition_, I realize. _Like how we feel when another first speaks our name, and we hear the distant melody of friendship intertwined with the syllables. _

"Cigi," my mouths shapes, and the joy within me increases.

After that, it's much easier to piece together the Cigi's dream. Three pieces pull me towards them, and when put them together I discover that I have three sisters, whom I love very much though they boss me around all the time.

Five more pieces and I remember that I like to construct wooden drums from deadwood I find during long walks with Shis. Shis paints each drum with a different pattern and colour theme, and we give the drums away for the Life Returning festival, the two weeks each five revolution around the sun when the Force streams from our star are most colourful and alive.

I piece together four pieces and place them in the centre of the growing design and then I'm transported back to the day Shis and I met. It was two Life Returning festivals ago, before I died. I am drumming, in a spot far away from the main crowd of watchers, on the side of the mountain. I am dimly aware of another person approaching me, but it isn't anyone I know and I'm content to concentrate on raising my tribute to the beauty of the Force with my music. What I don't realize is that Shis is also lost to the wonder of this night and the sun's dancing, so intent on the undulating colour that she stumbles over my shoulder as I sat near the pathway. Tumbling down awkwardly, she lands on my favourite drum, breaking the fragile creation into many small pieces.

Shis opens her mouth, the threads of her soul turning a deep, muddy brown with her embarrassment, but I speak first, driven by Force instinct. "Wonderful and mysterious is the Force, that it has taken away my drum only to bring me something more beautiful than I have ever seen or will ever find again."

And after I say it, I realized that I mean it. She is beautiful to me, the true colour of her soul like the deep blue, slow currents of the ocean. I can feel my core being stretch towards her, the deep, resonating beat of my blood mirrored in the rhythmic pulsing of his spirit.

We marry that same week, I remember as I add another piece, in front of the wild bonfire that marked the end of the festival, witnessed by all who attended.

I find other memories after that. The day we move into our own house, which I had designed to resonate and hum with the steady winds that flowed off the sea and over the small hill that we occupied. I am marvelling at the way that Shis has painted the walls. Somehow her designs and colours seem to mirror the music of our house in the Force, until her paints and the vibration of the house seem to merge into a larger, wondrous symphony. We dance to the music until we collapse onto the floor in exhaustion.

I touch three more pieces together, and suddenly I find myself lying down, looking up at my love as she moves above me. The taste of our lovemaking is like a thick, rich syrup and I savour it with every fibre of my being. And as I pour my seed into her later, when she is lying exhausted and satisfied on the bed, I can feel the life form in her belly, like a flower that suddenly opens its petals to the sun.

The pieces are almost putting themselves together, they seem to leap toward my mental fingers as gather and place them. Under my hands, an image is forming, a brightly coloured, tall horn that is straight and narrow at the top end, and broad and curved at the other.

As I put the final piece together, I can feel the presence of another approaching, faster than the ship within which I am. Dark, voracious, it is the mind of my master traveling along the slick, thick bond that stretches between us.

_You are bonded to me_, my master's voice booms in my head. _You are mine!_ He continues, driving all thought to the winds. But the same bitter hatred that knows only servitude to its hunger also passes through the horn within me, and is transformed into a long, mournful note, pregnant with all of the lost hopes and joys of my people. For the briefest of moments, that note fills me, shakes me, until all I can do is fall to the ground and weep, even as it drives my master's presence away from me and escapes into the depths of space.

When the note is gone, and I am left once again alone, my master's presence storms into me, consuming the horn and all of the memories there in an instant. He pauses for a moment there, and I can feel his puzzlement: how did something so fragile drive him away for the first time?

He searches for the answers within me, his rotting probes burrowing through the different layers of my mind. He sees the dream I have and understands through my eyes the mystery I tried to solve. But I have no answers for where the memories came from or what they did to drive him off.

And then, without warning or transition, my master is gone, taking with him yet another part of my people, my soul, leaving me with only the lie that my life has meaning and that I am part of a whole that does not exist.

The hopelessness that I thought I had put away, the mourning of my people, my isolation that I thought I had dispelled as an illusion, they are all here with me now, and the weight of the sorrow seems to grow with each passing moment.

But then I hear something; it is the horn's note coming from a long distance, growing stronger, fuller with each moment. And yet, as it approaches, I realized that it has changed, subtly, like an echo, with scents of places unknown and feelings strange and unfamiliar.

And a dream of life's response to the agony of the Force. I see guardians ringing a vortex. Men and women. Warriors, sages, and healers. They all stand, their share a purpose, their eyes gleaming and backs straight and proud. And among them, connecting them, of them, something I thought I would never see again, a web of sharing, connection, belonging… weak, delicate, unstable, and yet growing more vibrant, thicker, stronger with every moment.

And they perceive me too, in this moment, and they turn towards me as one, the intent on their faces clear. _Do not come here, dark one, you are not welcome._

And then the note is gone again, bounding back towards… towards what? It's the Exile, the Force tells me suddenly. Somehow the Exile is gathering the forces to combat the wound that whose mouth is my master.

That is where I must go, for in her lies my only hope to escape the loneliness. Only in her wound can I be free of life and all its pain, free of eh the Force and the painful sight it gives me.

But how can I get through the guardians, tens of thousands strong and already aware of me? I can not defeat so many; I am not even a warrior. And to die now, at their hands… that would condemn to tethered to my master like a small, lifeless moon circling madly around a black hole.

But… But perhaps there is another solution, something that I am good at.

I can surrender myself, give myself to the Exile. I can serve her, and maybe when she trusts me, we can forge a bond between us. And then, just maybe, she will let me use the bond to escape this life, to become one with that aspect of her wound in which life becomes non-life, where memories can not exist.

Perhaps she will let me go free.


End file.
